Yet it is our only way. Here are
death-mauls,--two. Take you,--they make no sound, provided a practised
hand is behind. Strike near and ease the fall, there are those who sleep
lightly here. Even the earth has ears to-night."
"Think you Ma'amselle is bound?" whispered Dupre next; "I could not see
for the swinging of the factor's body."
"No," replied the trader; "both she and the Nor'wester walked free. But
how, for love of Heaven, comes she here?" he added.
Dupre sighed softly in the darkness.
"For love," he said; "for love of a man."
"I had guessed as much,--how how did she pass the many miles of lake
and stream and forest? And how overtake us?"
"I brought her. By day and night also, without camp, have we come,
aided by canoe-men from Mr. Mowbray's brigade, which we met on the
eastern shore of Winnipeg coming down from York, bound for the
Assiniboine and Cumberland House."
"But for which man? She is unreadable, that woman, though love lives
naked in her face."
But a sudden ache had gripped the throat of the young trapper and he
did not answer.
"Let us be off, M'sieu," he whispered; "now is the time."
"Aye,--if ever."
Slowly, inch by inch, lifting their bodies that they might not rustle
the loose earth and trampled leaves of the camp, Ridgar and Dupre drew
forth into the shadows.
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